


Questing Beast

by taichara



Category: Final Fantasy Tactics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 07:09:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11664147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: Cloud's been shocked into searching for answers to his own existence.  Agrias, alas, is just wondering why she agreed to this in the first place.





	Questing Beast

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Challenge 001 (Choose-Your-Own Action/Adventure Trope) @ [Challenge Me](http://challengeme.dreamwidth.org).
> 
> Trope: "This Way To Certain Death"

"You know there are -- I mean, there's no reason why there would not be -- _easier_ ways to deal with what happened a fortnight ago, don't you? I mean, you must. You aren't normally so foolish."

Under any other circumstances Cloud would have welcomed the chiding from the exasperated holy knight who was, against her better judgement perhaps, doggedly following him down the mouth of the cavern popularly known as the Devil's Maw. But these were not normal circumstances, oh no. Stopping dead in his tracks, he suddenly whirled to face her, his embroidered robes twisting in his wake as he stared her down. Agrias eyed the stony set of his eerie blue eyes, the way his grip on the bronze-bound battle pole nearly cracked the shaft, and lifted a brow.

"Also, not normally so irritable.

"There is no one here but us, Cloud. Speak to me. If for no other reason than to tell me why we've thrown ourselves out on this fool's errand when there is so much that must be dealt with --"

"Fine. But come on, we're wasting time."

Cloud grated out the words and turned back to the Maw's twisting passages, which left Agrias to smother a sigh and pick up her own pace. For someone who inclined to magickal ways since they'd found him, Cloud was perishingly -- some would say frighteningly -- physically adept and she doubted that she'd catch him if he really put it to a test of endurance.

And yet for some time, Cloud still said nothing. The silence was crushing, but she saw the tension in the set of the mystic's shoulders and suspected he was wrestling with some half-remembered inner demon; so, as long as Cloud seemed likely to maybe, eventually, speak, she held her tongue. Eventually -- three bone-strewn passages, two dusty chambers and a brief scuffle with piscodaemons later -- Cloud heaved a sigh and turned to her. In the dimness, his eyes seemed to glow; Agrias fought down the unease that trickled down her spine. The man was amnesiac and fought valiantly for them; to recoil would be a disservice --

"I'm sure you can guess half of this already, what with comments on fortnights and whatever. But I ... no, let me try again. That last major fray ..."

Ah, there it was. Nodding, she gestured for him to continue. Cloud ground his teeth.

"I want to say that I've never so much as laid eyes on Elmdore before that moment. But that's a brave sort of guess, isn't it? Not a single one of us has any clue where I came from, or what exactly I am, excepting that Mustadio's machine _might_ have something to do with it all. Elmdore ..."

Abruptly Cloud turned away again. She followed his gaze in their lantern's shivering lights -- scatters of bones, human and beast alike, dotting the floor of the stony chamber. The deeper into the Maw they passed, the greater the number of broken ivory warnings of mortality. Cloud crossed the chamber and prodded at a bone-pile with the butt of his weapon, turning over fragments that might once have been a wing. 

"... When we closed on him, I saw flames. Flames, and wings, and eyes like mine -- you know what I mean -- but burning sea-green and slitted like a panther's. Things I've half-glimpsed in dreams. The Marquis brought all that screaming to the fore, because he could have _been_ that thing. Which makes no sense. It doesn't even match the demon the Marquis became." 

Well, that was certainly something, wasn't it. But it didn't answer her question. Agrias flung out the hand not carrying a lantern, taking in the entire Maw in one sweeping gesture.

"Concerning enough, but why come _here_ in the aftermath? We must press on to Eagrose --"

"If Ramza agreed to this errand -- and a few others -- then I don't see much reason for you to be complaining, Lady Oaks. You decided to come with me on your own, after all."

Cloud's brittle retort stabbed home like a dagger in the back. A fair blow, that was, and he sounded strained; a stab of guilt settled somewhere close to the jab his words gave her.

"I did, and I do not regret it. But, why? Why this death trap?"

A sigh; and Cloud pivoted slowly once again, lifting his own lantern to illuminate the Maw's twisting, turning depths that lay ahead. Then a second. He closed his eyes briefly and Agrias thought she saw, for just a moment, the flicker of a fey, mad little smile.

"Because I also dream of a wound in the earth so big that the end of everything might come from it, and the Devil's Maw sounds as close to it as anything else I've come across since I followed this corps of heretics.

"Maybe I'll find an answer. Maybe an answer's going to find _me_ and I'll know who I am, or what I was, or maybe it'll just shake something loose in my head -- or maybe you'll have to drag me gibbering out of here. Maybe I'll leave bloody bones to add to the pile. I don't know. But I'd like to _try_ , before we all gamble everything on stopping magical stones that aren't the stones I think I should be remembering."

\-- Now he _did_ smile, an expression somewhere between hardened warrior and madman. It oddly suited him, she thought --

"Or maybe we'll find a devil-dragon to slay, pilfer its baubles, and nothing else will happen aside from a few rounds at the pub. Why don't we find out? What do we really have to lose?"

Well, then, since he put it that way ... Despite herself Agrias chuckled, limbering her sword.

"As you wish. 

"Lead on, then, and make good on the name you've claimed for yourself, eh?"


End file.
